32 Comments

The pro-matacide crowd making an issue of "viability" is a complete canard. Medically and biologically, viability is clearly defined. A fetus is a viable child when it can breathe, eat, drink, urinate and defecate separate from the mother and without medical intervention. Personally, I would add having a normal EEG, but having basic biological function must be a minimum.

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Yes. The ability to medically care for preemies, which we didn't have for most of human history, has probably confused people. But it would be extraordinarily rare to abort a healthy fetus past the date at which that care is available, and the other side needs to lie about all of that to keep their mob agitated. It's straw man blood libel of the worst kind.

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I hate it so much that the other side uses advances in neonatal care to support their arguments. Decisions about care for preemies are also private family matters, just like decisions about continuation of pregnancy.

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Yes. They're trying to confuse the question of when something becomes an independent person. But to me the bigger issue anyway is why the fetus always wins over the woman, regardless of 'personhood'. We know the answers to that always distill down to religious fanaticism and ugly misogyny. Logically, the woman has to always win over the fetus because it's not independent, person or not.

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Not everything has a compromise, or a middle ground. Human rights don't. I don't know if Americans have forgotten that. The media certainly has. There's this really dumb idea that one person says one thing, another says another, and the spot exactly in the middle must be a 'reasonable' 'compromise'. The agents of destruction have figured that out, that it allows them to keep making more and more unreasonable demands because the halfway point always moves with them. Give Putin half of Ukraine, let the cops shoot half the unarmed civilians, throw out half the votes in the election. We've got to put a stop to this.

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Well aaid — “the middle keeps moving.” Good journalism does not comment on the news, but finds the stories and reports them, trusting the viewer/reader to make the analysis

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Too bad we don't see more of that. As a retired Surgical Assistant, it incenses me to see all the medical disinformation they use in the MSM. You cannot have a "heartbeat" ban, if there is no heart at six weeks for instance.

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Medical dis/misinformation is a big problem in general. My mom was a nurse and so are all three of her sisters, so that was never a problem in our family, but it seems to be far more normal for people not to know things.

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Some people are very gullible/ mentally lazy and just accept anything in print as fact. (one of my sisters is one such "sheep". The liars are counting on that.

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"That is the only way that we are going to expand abortion rights in our state." No, the way is for you Republican fuckers to stop terrorizing women to appease the deranged cultists among your supporters. YOU are the -only- problem here.

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Regarding Girls Inc. in Fort Worth, this is one of countless examples of this kind of thing all across this country. These Republicans are trying to effect nothing less than a cultural revolution, and I'm using that term deliberately, with all its connection to China and Mao.

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-Any- Republican presidential candidate is going to have to pretend to be kind of sort of pro-choice in the general, so we'd best accept it, get used to it, and plan to counter it.

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Sooooo, asking again, about OUR terminology. We know that "pro-choice" doesn't address access (and without access there is no choice), and that "pro-reproductive freedom" (yeah, it's a mouthful) polls much better and people react more positively to it. So why do we keep saying "pro-choice"? I would love to see us practice and model using better terminology, and AED would be a great place for that, right? Or tell me what I'm missing

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I’m a dude and fairly naive on this subject rel to the vast expertise of those who have been doing this work for years or decades.

I like pro-choice because it evokes freedom and individualism and it seems to “do the job.”

That said, I also like pro-abortion and phrases that use abortion without shame because I think trying not to say it or advocate for it and be 1990s “PC” is a big part of the reason we’re in this mess. Like abortion is awesome. It’s pregnant people making a radical decision to care for themselves and that’s phenomenal. It’s often mothers making the radical decision to care for their existing children and ensure they have enough resources to provide for their loved ones. Celebrate that in the fucking streets. I want abortion on demand. Abortion 2024.

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What about 'pro-health'?

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The video by the woman who was denied care for her cluster headaches because she might get pregnant sometime reminds me of the almost 30 years that I fought with doctors to demand that they tie my tubes. This was from age 17 (the age of majority was 21, and you had to be at least 30 and have 3 kids), til I started going through menopause in my mid-40s. The answers I got ranged from a simple "no" to a long disquisition on what if I wanted kids, what if my non-existent husband wanted kids, and how I was wasting my, er, breeding potential, and everything in between. I had known that I didn't want kids since I was in kindergarten (age 4.) Never, not once, did any doctor ever acknowledge that long history, *or* my many medical problems that might have made a pregnancy a Really Bad Idea. Nor did any of them ever bother to do a medical history to find out if I could even get pregnant in the first fucking place. So, yeah, like the woman in the video, I was treated like a perpetual child, who could never make decisions for myself, but would always be at the mercy of some random guy who wanted a breeding machine. When did this happen? 1970-1995. And here we are in 2023 and docs are still playing their same old stupid, sexist tune. There's a reason that the movement for reproductive rights focuses on a woman's right to choose, on bodily autonomy, and on consent.

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When my Mom wanted to get her tubes tied in 1972, she had to have my Dad’s written permission before doctors would schedule the procedure. Her own health and wishes were secondary. She was over 30 & had kids.

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I have a brother in law who needed spousal permission to get a vasectomy. That is terrible.

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That is sick, as is the woman needing permission. Would any sane wife say no?

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Yep! Everyone should get bodily autonomy. I have no issues with doctors strongly encouraging people to have a talk with their partner but permission forms are bad policy. He didn’t get the surgery at the time because he decided to find a different doctor. So win-lose.

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Yes. In a good relationship, as with abortion, it would be discussed. No one should be made a parent if that is not their desire.

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Yeah. I also think we should de stigmatize divorce. People change. Enduring relationships are hard. If someone *suddenly* wants to have kids in a relationship and the other partner is a firm no, well, they need other options than just suck it up and one of them should be miserable for decades.

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"treated like a perpetual child, who could never make decisions for myself, but would always be at the mercy of some random guy who wanted a breeding machine." -

I think that just about perfectly describes the status of women in our world, far more than just with respect to reproductive rights. What strikes me as particularly galling is the randomness of the guy. He doesn't have to do anything to deserve his power other than carry a Y chromosome. Who decided that -any- random guy matters more than any woman? I don't know, but we know it's true; at the end of the day it's the only real explanation for why Donald Trump was elected president instead of Hillary Clinton.

The irony is rich as a random guy who talks a lot myself, but I at least try to be supportive, thoughtful, relevant, kind, empathetic, insightful, humble. I don't think most of the men are trying and they really tick me off.

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Speaking truth, too. Don't forget that part. I notice a lot of younger guys are doing that as well. I hear from my nephew (who is 31) about the younger people he knows and how they are Not Standing For that Shit Anymore. Nor are my five nieces.

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I have a lot of hope in the younger generations, but it's also been pointed out to me that there are plenty of rotten young men too, who think -they're- the victims in society. Maybe / hopefully that's more on the internet than in real life? But then maybe the internet is where they spew what they don't dare in real life. And is that progress, that they don't dare in real life? Idk. Ugh.

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Ah yes, there are many great, empathetic, young men, unlike the spoiled incels who refuse to join responsible adult society, and mooch off of their mom like Killer Kyle Rittenhouse, and just act as trolls on the 'net. (who worship gross creatures like the misogynist Tate and Joe Rogaine, yet another swine.

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The "middle ground" was already existent under Roe. 97% of abortions occur before 15 weeks. Abortions after "viability" are at nearly 0% because if a pregnancy endangers a mother's life, they will always make every effort to save the baby. All other abortions are due to nonviability of the fetus or before viability such as rupture of membranes. It is barbaric to ban abortions in these cases as we already see playing out in the media. As Jessica keeps saying, pregnancy is too complicated to legislate. Get the state out of our doctors' offices.

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Yeah Roe was the compromise and they blew it up.

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Ughhhh!!!😡

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Oct 6, 2023
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Yes yes yes yes! They are sacrificing in the hope that others might be saved, and we are all in their debt. I suspect the best thing we can do to help them heal is to have it make a difference, let it not all be for nought.

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Yeah this woman has some serious ovaries to come forward with her story with the state of the internet these days. Can't imagine the onslaught she must be receiving.

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